Pay TV Archive:
Pay’s prayer to the anti-siphoning gods
Foxtel CEO Kim Williams has called on the government to redraft the list.
With sports the biggest drawcard on Pay TV, Williams is reinforcing the “use it or lose it” principle, whereby FTA should lose the right to sports events that they fail to broadcast.
His statements follow plans by TEN to launch a dedicated 24hr sports channel, ONE HD.
“Over 75 per cent of the 1,300 sporting events - if we leave the Olympic and Commonwealth Games out - protected for them each year since 1994 is never shown on free-to-air TV,” Mr …
Auditions: Bogans wanted
A classified ad declaring “Bogans Wanted For New TV Show” is part of a search for Australia’s biggest bogan by Paul Fenech.
Fenech, who is behind Pizza and Swift and Shift Couriers on SBS, is seeking applicants with “tattoos, missing teeth and true blue in King Gees” to win big cash prizes.
“I want to put flannelette on plasma. We want mullets, tattoos, AVOs and defactos. It will like Bogan Idol,”he told news.com.au.
He said his new show for early next year would be something like a cross between “Cops, Dog The Bounty …
Domestic Blitzes the night for Nine
Nine scored a big hit with its Domestic Blitz special last night, grabbing a huge 1.67m viewers. It thrashed both Seven and TEN, and helped the network win Monday night.
The special for Bianca Saez and her family clearly struck a chord with viewers, especially those who had seen her struggle against Tourette’s Syndrome on 60 Minutes. Anyone who saw the family home saw it was indeed falling to pieces (there were walls smashed in, and doors that you could see right through). Now the home is decked out in every modern …
Seriously D-Day?
Is today the day that “Seriously” becomes a thing of the past for TEN?
Today Network TEN has its 2009 programme launch, first in Sydney, and later in Melbourne, where it will unleash its shiny new line-up and attempt to put the year behind it.
With the exception of a handful of hits (notably So You Think You Can Dance Australia) it hasn’t been the best of years for TEN.
The second part of the year has been worse than the first, with viewers in a wholesale snubbing of the network since the Olympic …
Hackett: Dancing “wasn’t a show I wanted to do”
Here’s something we all knew, but at least it’s on record now.
Grant Hackett confirmed Seven’s demands he compete on Dancing with the Stars was the reason he walked to Nine.
“I wouldn’t say Seven was a bad place to be, but we just couldn’t agree on the direction that we both wanted to take . . . and neither of us were willing to compromise,” he told news.com.au
“It wasn’t a show I wanted to do . . . I’m the first person to take the mickey out of myself, I don’t …
It’s the TV economy, stupid.
Amid speculation of PBL Media’s crippling debt, Channel Nine has denied a rumour it is trying to sell its share of the London 2012 Olympic rights.
“At the very time that our enemies are putting this around we have been in the process of wrapping up the (2011 and 2015) Rugby World Cup rights as well,” Nine spokesman David Hurley told BusinessDaily.
“We’d hardly be doing that and in the same breathe be trying to shop around the Olympic rights.”
Mr Hurley did say that all networks were having to “live with the realities” …
Airdate: Rugby League World Cup
Channel Nine will air the Rugby League World Cup: Australia v New Zealand at 8:30pm Sunday October 26th.
Other teams to play in the series will include England, France, PNG, Scotland, Fiji, Tonga and Samoa.
The series will conclude in Brisbane on November 22nd.
Amid calls for the television ratings to be tallied excluding Olympics, Seven has previously said Nine’s World Cup Series should also nullify ratings for its relevant weeks. Advertisers have traditionally removed Olympics and Commonwealth Games from annual results.
Nine lands Rugby World Cup
The Nine Network has secured the rights to the 2011 and 2015 Rugby World Cups.
In a deal with the International Rugby Board and in conjunction with FOX Sports, Nine has announced plans to deliver comprehensive coverage of the 2011 World Cup in New Zealand and the 2015 tournament. It follows the network’s acquisition of the London Olympics in 2012.
CEO David Gyngell told The Sunday Telegraph: “We really are the wide world of sports now. The guarantees of our industry are local news services and big sporting events. They are the tent …
Is Week 41 Nine’s last shot?
With 2.07m viewers for the NRL Grand Final it’s game on in TV land for this week’s ratings crown.
Last night the network attracted a 33.2% share over rival Seven’s 25.2%. Nine hasn’t won a ratings week since July.
Just the second hour of the match factored into Nine’s primetime share, only in Sydney and Melbourne. Time delays in Queensland, and South Australia meant a slim 30 minutes made it into primetime, and none in Western Australia. At least it gave Nine’s other shows a healthy lead-in.
In comparison to 2007, moving the …
ABC beats TEN as Seven wins
It was the week that American critics began to knife Kath & Kim (officially), ABC told staff it would cut up to 35 production jobs, Nine denied having a contract with the wife of a convicted crim, an actor lambasted his former soap, Today Tonight announced its next host would be a sports presenter and said its film crew helped -not hounded- an interviewee, Seven ’streamlined’ its Lotto results, buyers eyed a key production company, the Imparja / Nine Darwin deal fell apart, a TV critic died, and suddenly so did …
Matthew White to anchor Today Tonight
Seven will return a male anchor to Today Tonight when sports presenter Matthew White replaces Anna Coren, it has been announced.
He will be the first male presenter in for the programme since Stan Grant vacated the chair for Naomi Robson in 2000.
The announcement of White for the role is a surprise name, most of the rumours were looking elsewhere as to Coren’s replacement, with many tipping Samantha Armytage would take the role. Most recently White was part of Seven’s Olympic team, filling in on Sunrise, presenting sports on Seven’s Sydney bulletin …
2.58m goal for Seven’s AFL
Updated: Channel Seven’s broadcast of the AFL Grand Final was the biggest television audience of the year -outside of its own Olympics coverage.
The biggest audience tuned in for the end of the game, when a whopping 2.58m viewers watched Presentations. Seven has merged its separate listings for Presentation, Post Match, Pre Match, and actual match to ascertain an average audience of 2.49m. It peaked at 3.86m across metro and regional audiences.
In Melbourne alone 1.29m viewers watched the match, followed by Sydney…